NAIROBI, July 15 (Xinhua) -- Digital finance could help Africa to accelerate its achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, a United Nations official said on Monday.
Tillman Bruett, secretariat director of the UN Secretary-General's Task Force on Digital Financing of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), told Xinhua in Nairobi that digital finance leverages on technologies to enhance access of financial services to all segments of the population.
"Digital finance creates an opportunity for households to finance their own SDGs by providing them a viable model to access health, clean energy through pay as you use systems," Bruett said on the sidelines of the inaugural Afro-Asia FinTech Festival.
The two-day event brings together over 1,500 policy makers and finance industry practitioners from over 45 countries in Africa and Asia to accelerate uptake of fintech in the two regions.
Bruett said that digital finance plays a large role in mobilizing savings and also helps to channel the resources to build infrastructure necessary for the attainment of the SDGs.
According to the UN official, there has been tremendous growth in Africa on the adoption of digital finance solutions.
He observed that Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Zimbabwe have made the most advances in the use of digital finance.
"In some of the countries, more than 50 percent of the population is using digital finance of one form or another including accessing savings, acquiring insurance or investing," Bruett added.
He noted that other countries such as Zambia, Senegal and Benin have improved the percentage of the population using digital finance solutions through use of mobile money platforms.
